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ANMIKW JOHNSON, 

I'llKSIOKXTOFTHKl'MTEl) STATES. 



Between the gigantic figures of Abraham Lincoln 
and Ulysses 8. Grant, in the grand historic Indian tilt* 
of the President* of the United States, the individual- 
ity of Andkkw Johnson is dwarfed : hut aside from In- 
immediate predecessor and successor, the subject of tin 
following sketch was hv no means ;i pygmy: hut, mi 
the contrary, among men above the line of mediocrity, 
a great man with adamantine characteristics which time 
will never efface, and, in every phase <>t his varied and 
eventful life, from the proverhial ninth part of a man 
to the chieftainship of fitly millions of mankind, well 
worthy the careful consideration of the student of Mao 
individually and collectively. 



ANDREW JOHNSON, 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



REMINISCENCES 



<>K 



HIS PRIVATE LIFE AND CHARACTER. 



BY 

ONE OF HIS SECRETARIES. 
i FRANK COWAN. ) 

SEIVSD EDITION. 



UKEKNKSBUROH, PENNSYLVANIA: 

THK OLIVER PUBLISHING HOUSE 

1 8 9 4. 



E..U7 

X 



The \\v<\ publication of the following reminiscences 
was in Tiik Pittsbitki.h Lkadkk, Sunday, August 22nd, 
1ST."). In the same issue appeared an editorial on cer- 
tain statements contained in the writer's communica- 
tion, which, to make this edition complete, is appended 
to the reminiscences in the form of a note. It was 
written by the editor of the Lkadkk at the time, the 
late Col. John Nkvin, a gentleman of fine literary at- 
tainments and most estimable qualities generally, with 
a special aptitude for deviating gracefully from "the 
daily chronicles of rogui ry and woe," now. to cut a 
curious pathway in the bosky borderland between or- 
thodoxy and heterodoxy; now, to enter the labyrinths 
of mysticism and decipher strange time-defaced in- 
scriptions on the walls in the gloom; and anon, to 
wander into the flowery wilds i)\ poesy and rest a 
dreamy while in a leaf-hidden bower of bliss. 

Not a word has been changed in these reminiscent - 
since they were written nineteen years ago; the writer 
preferring to reproduce the impressions made upon 
him in his youth rather than confound them with la- 
ter reflections, comparisons, and judgments of men 
formed from a wide and varied experience at home 
and abroad. He is free to say here, however, that, if 
he would change to-day the article in any material 
way, it would he to enlarge the subject ^\' his remarks 
to more heroic proportions and dwell on the grim irrit 
that characterized him in the accumulation and com- 
plexity of tortures to which he was subjected, in his 
person and family, to say nothing of those that came 
from the cares of his high office and the envenomed 
daggers of his political enemies and persecutors during 
the dark days of reconstruction and the darker of im- 
peachment. Frank Cowan 
Mount Odin Park and Experimental Orchards^ 
Greenexbiwgh, Pa., 30 April, 1894. 



ANDREW JOHNSON. 

MS PRIVATE L1KK AND CHARACTER 



During tin 1 administration of Mr. Lincoln, Mk. 
Nkii.i.. my immediate predecessor as secretary of the 
president to sign land patents, was removed from the 
Interior Department to the room occupied by the pri- 
vate secretaries of the president in the Executive Man- 
sion — the White-house ^\ popular parlance. On my 
appointment by Mr. Johnson, and confirmation by the 
senate, I found myself assigned to duty in the room 
adjoining the president's reception room. Mr. Robert 
Johnson, the president's eldest son, and officially his 
private secretary, Col. Kobkrt Morrow, Col. Ken. 
Lono, and Col. Wright Rives, assistants, having desks 
in the same room, and Col. Moore, t lie confidential sec- 
retary o( his excellency and the hearer of messages to 
congress, in the library, on the opposite side nC the re- 
ception room, the three rooms connected with facing 
doors, and the president's desk and table Iwtwecn., I 
am particular to note the relationship of these rooms, 
tor in so doing I indicate the relationship I stood to the 
president, and the point of view from which 1 made 
the observations upon which 1 base the following re- 
marks about the private life and character ^\' Mix. 
Johnson during the last two and a halt' years o\ his 
term of .office. 

From the first I was impressed with a grim severity, 
which not only was personified in Mk. Johnson, hut 
seemed to pervade the atmosphere about him. Early 
and late he was at earnest work. He seemed to me 
morose and irritable. On the occasion ^\' any repeated 
or continued laughter or noise, though not out o( the 



ft ANDREW JOHNSON. 

way, nor particularly disturbing, he would open the 
door and present himself thereat, and the laughter or 
noise im mediately ceased, though he skid never a n 
proving won!, <>r gave a reproachful look. 1 rather 
joked with my comrades for awhile about their dread of 
the president; but 1 soon lapsed into a feeling akin in 
the presence of the grimly-stern great nian.^ I pondered 
over the chilling manner, and scrutinized fits every ex- 
pression of face and gesture, and motion of body, to 
reconcile it with his suavity of s|>ceeh to all at all tin i 
and his kindly tones to all about him- I may say, 
that, in almost daily contact with him tor over two 
years. I never saw him smile hut one* — never saw him 
relax from the most austere dignity I ever beheld con- 
tinued in mortal man to a familiar freedom common t«> 
men, hut oncci It i< true. I have -em him greet friends 
with pleasure portrayed in his countenance, and have 
Been him with a grim,, cast-iron wrinkle on the nether 
half of his lace at public receptions : but his eye lacked 
the luster .»t a liglit heart, and his cheek the Hush of a 
kindly warmth within: and never but once, ill more 
than two years, did I see him unliend from his 
grim rigidity, to the flexibility of fonn and feature 
which belongs to ordinary humanity. And. curiously. 
this phenomenon was observed at a time when it is 
generally sup|>osed he \\a- most anxious and severely 
sullen, namely, during his trial l»efore the bar oi the 
Senate. About eleven o'clock one night, while engaged 
in rullitu! celestial |>arallels and equivalents to English 
provcrl* from the works ot Conki i ii s, the ancient - 
mid lawgiver of China, Mi:. Johnson came into the 

room, and nlwerving the 1 k More mi and what 1 was 

doin'j. took a chair and sat down by m\ side, and l»e- 
gan tn talk of China and the Chin.-,- in a way that 
showed that he had made them an t«|jccial study. 
Fresh troni the pages of M \ia n Polo. M. H« | • I>! '■' 
Hum:. I Uhm i rn.i:. and others, and the Anal- fore 

me, he found in me an appreciative and interested list- 



ANDRKW JoHSSOS 



ener, and on he talked, fifteen minutes, a half hour and 
more, till forgetting himself in far-off Cathay, he cocked 
his presidential feet upon my writing-table, and. in 
mockery of the general ignorance and ridiculous ideas 
with resfieet to the " heathen Chinee " and his history, 
actually smiled ! 

When I learned, however, what Mr. Johnson suffered 
and endured within himself, without moan or com- 
plaint, during this long tinu — what physical pain, 
amounting to torture at times, and mental anxiety for 
s< veral members of his family, licsides his conscientious 
care to |>crform the duties of his office as well as lay m 
his power, the wonderwas, not that he was grim and 
severe in his hearing and incessant in his earnest work, 
hut that he lived through it at all. Afflicted with gravel 
he found no cessation from pain, and hut little relief in 
standing while at work for hour-, in preference to re- 
maining in a sitting posture, or from the variety ol an 
occasional "tit of the gravel,' 1 with it- excruciating tor- 
ture. And with respect to his domestic anxieties, 1 
will pass over poor, kind-hearted ^BohV 1 intemperate 
habits and consequent adventures, and vagaries in i 
tremis, and other minor matters, and notice only that 
at and absorbing one which centered in Mrs. John- 
son, a beloved w ; fe, a helpmeet worthy of her husband 
in all his greatness and glory, an invalid in a room 
across the hall from the library, whence, with doors ajar 
constantly, her cough, or sob, or moan of anguish, could 
tall upon his intent ear and summon him to her l>ed- 
side in a moment . 

And when 1 learned all this, and more, which I need 
not here make known, it was not a feeling akin to dread 
1 had for the harrowed president, but reverence and awe 
at the might of the ln-art and the will within him to l>e 
— to act as 1 saw him, and to work. work. work, with a 
sullen fixedness of purp< the sole means ol ren- 

dering tolerable his existence. Ah, if the world with- 
out knew only what it waste be president of the Uni- 



S ANDREW Johnson. 

led States, us Mk. Johnson wad, (and all must pay some 
price or other that fully compensates for position and 

power,) there would be much less over-reaching and 
straining after office upon office up to the highest in 

the land. 

I said Mr. Johnson was a conscientious worker, ami 
1 said so wittingly. He felt a personal responsibility 

in his position which admitted of neither division nor 
delegation. He wanted to do all the work of the exec- 
utive department himself. This, of course, was impos- 
sible, and husiness of all kinds dragged drearily along. 
In this Mr, Johnson differed widely from Uknekal 
Grant, if 1 may judge of the latter from a contact of 
only several weeks — till the confirmation o\' my suc- 
cessor suggested the propriety of my retiring to the 
shades of western Pennsylvania. General Grant ha* 
at least learned the old legal dictum, qui facit per alium, 
facit per ». and acts accordingly, and does in one day 
what Mr, Johnson would require many for, and in the 
details of the high office, possibly as well; for while 
Mr, Johnson was giving personal special attention to 
some things, he was neglecting others. Mk. Lincoln 
more nearly resemhled Mil Johnson in his manner o( 
transacting the executive husiness. Easy of approach, 
and constantly made personally interested in the de- 
tails of many cases, others could attend to as well as he, 
he was constantly having the most mighty and most 
trivial on his hands at the same time. Alternate with 
the greatest men of the country came to see Mr, John- 
son the smallest and the most contemptible, and all 
alike receiving a gracious audience. Hard upon the 
heels of JuDGJ Jerry Black, a dirty little pardon-bro- 
ker or some other miserable go-between. In this the 
president's character allowed the misrepresentations o\' 
his enemies to go not without the color of very circum- 
stantial evidence. Believing himself to he. ami feeling 
as the servant of the people, it seemed to me that Mk. 
Johnson permitted himself to he bored frequently by 



ANDREW JOHNSON. \) 

Tom, Dirk and Harry as part of his duty as president 
of the United States. 

Mr. Johnson was as earnest and decided in liis ordi- 
nary conversation as in his work. And when he talked 
he expected the |>erson addressed to listen as attentively 
and patiently as he himself did to what was said to 
him. As I said before, on account of obtaining a relief 
from the constant pain ot* gravel, he preferred to stand, 
which made his speech and silence both more impres- 
sive. !n talking he looked directly into the eyes of the 

person spoken to; in listening he hung his head, wear- 
ing the while a gloomy and seriously attentive expres- 
sion. 

I have seen it recorded that Mr, Johnson was humor- 
ous. It may be that he was. hut in all my intercourse 
with him 1 never saw any trace of it. unless it was in 
the grotesque primness and stolid serenity with which 
he contrasted with the light-hearted young men about 
him — Col. Moore, very easy and affable in his man- 
ner, and quick in his motions; Col. Morrow — hand- 
some, hearty, happy Bob, whose terrible suicide in San 
Francisco, a year and a half ago, was such a heart- 
break to his many friends — whose genial smile was 
sunshine in the darkest days in the White-house: CoL. 
Long, as playful as a hoy. and Col. Rives as full o\' 
waggery and drollery as an egg is full o\' meat. Possi- 
bly, however, as Fhldaff was not only witty in himself 
hut the cause that wit was in other men, and therefore 
entitled to the credit, so. on the latter assumption that 
he was the cause of humor in others, Mr. Johnson 
may he said to have been humorous, hut in no other 
way that I can see. He never told stories nor perpetra- 
ted jokes, nor indulged in facetite — nor relished any- 
thing akin, as I learned to my serious discomfiture on 
one occasion. 

At one time there was a large .lew in frequent 
consultation with his excellency, and the president. 
desiring to address a communication to him one day. 



10 ANDREW JOHNSON'. 

put his "head inside the secretaries' room, and inquired, 
"What is thf Christian name of Mr. So-and-so?" "He 
has none, Mr. President," I replied gravely, "he is a 
Jew." The president closed the door, and I had the 
mortification a few minutes afterward to hear the satire 
of hearing him inquire in another quarter, "What is 
the first or given name of Mr. So-and-so, the Jew 
lie did not add, "How absolute the knave is ! We must 
speak by the card or equivocation will undo us!" hut I 
. thought it, and felt its full force as a just penalty for 
my ill-directed jocularity 

Another instance of this reactionary humor in Mr. 
Johnson, and at my expense, 1 will relate and there an 
end On entering upon the duties of my office, 1 found 
the only vacant desk in the room, a high, massive wal- 
nut stand in a corner; and having no more backbone 
than the average government employee about Washing- 
ton, 1 found it intolerable to stand for any great length 
of time, so I determined to have the high desk removed 
and a low table substituted. Not wishing to disturb 
the president, in my own name I requested tin* general 
in charge of the public buildings to furnish me with 
the kind of table 1 desired, and on its arrival, directed 
the several porters ahout the White-house to stow away 
the great desk in the garret or the cellar, or cut it into 
kindling-wood for aught I caret!. I reckoned without 
mine host, however. No sooner had the work i^\ re- 
moval begun than the grim presence of the president 
appeared at the door, and a general paralysis among the 
porters was the immediate result. 1 stcp|>ed forward 
and explained the removal to his excel lei icy. With his 
hand on the door-knob he made the following little 
speech, and the great desk remained in the corner, 
where I found it. to the end of the administration: 
"That desk Was Gkn. Jackson's. 1 love the memory ^( 
(Jkn. Jackson. Whatever was 'Old Hickory V 1 revere. 
It is ahout the only thing in the White-house that is a 
memento of bygone years, when the constitution *'\ tin: 



ANDRKW JOHNSON. ]] 

United States was worth more than the paj>er on which 
it was printed. 1 desire that the desk of Andrkw Jack- 
win remain in that corner as long as the mantle of its 
one-time grand possessor is on my shoulders" — or words 
to that effect. "But, Mr. President," 1 replied, u if the 
desk is not removed, where will 1 place my table?" 
'•Where you please; hut Amuikw Jackson's desk will 
remain in that corner. 'J^ffhe door closed ; and the only 
place in the room where I could place my table was in 
the center of it, where I did place it, and had the satis- 
faction of seeing his excellency for two years afterward 
walk around it several times a day and stumble against 
it repeatedly in attestation of his devotion to the mem- 
ory of the meat A. .1. o\' former years. From that day 
to this I never see an old desk or bedstead but 1 tip mv 
hat to it with especial reverence and veneration. 

In the early days of the impeachment trial, Mr. 
Johnson lietrayed a great deal of anxiety as to its re- 
sult, and a terribly hitter enmity to those whom he 
regarded as conspirators not only against him, hut also 
the constitution of the Uniteil States, which he believed 
he represented, if not indeed personified. He said little 
t<> me about it while the matter was before the House. 
hut directed me on two occasions, when it was expected 
a vote would he taken, to go on the Boor of the House 
and ascertain from my friends the feeling for and 
against him. Tis good fishing in drumly waters, saith 
the old proverb; hut 1 got seldom a nibble and caught 
few gudgeons, and was relieved from further dutv in 
that direction. When he was arraigned, however. l>e- 
fore the Senate, his passion had subsided, and he became 
.|iiitc philosophic. 1 think he believed firmly he would 
l»e convicted, that nothing could avert his expulsion. ' 
and he submitted calmly as to a decree of fate. He 
read AomsoN s "Cato" again and again, and committed 
great parts of it to memory, which, on the mellowing 
of occasion, he would fulminate against his conspira- 
tors with great vehemence, but without violence. "Do 



l'i ANIHIKW JOHNSON. 

you read Cato?" he inquired of me one evening 

"Wherein of the divinity that stirs within us — I have 
read it/' I replied. "Thru I will talk to you ;" and he 
did, and more frequently afterward. ^Knowing perso- 
nally the members of the Senate at the time a frequent 
topic of conversation between us was their characters, 
the motives that actuated them, and the fates of those 
who would likely favor or oppose him. And here a 
weird phase in the character of this ill-understood great 
man. He was firm in the conviction that right would 
he rewarded, and wrong punished. To illustrate the 
sequence he referred to the old proverb, misfortunes 
never come single. The same combination i>\' circum- 
stances that produces one misfortune must as certainly 
produce another, if it is not broken up before, as par- 
ents who have produced one had child will, if thev 
continue to breed, produce another of the same wicked 
character. Applying, then, this rule to his enemies, 
the wickedness of conspirators that would expel him 
from the presidency would as certainly result in evil to 
them or their children as night follows day. This was 
his philosophy of the doctrine ol compensation and the 
law of retribution, the decree of fate. It was Strang* — 
nay, awful, when his grim seriousness was considered, 
the questions at issue in his trial, and his fate, as presi- 
dent of the United States, in the trembling balance— it 
was awful to hear him trace, with logical precision, the 
sequence of dire events to the nation and calamities to 
individuals that would follow the wrong, the evil, the 
crime of his expulsion. He frequently referred to the 
fates of the signers of the death-warrant of diaries 1, 
as indisputable proof o( the truth of his theory^ like- 
wise to the fall of the Roman empire, 'when vice pre- 
vailed and impious men bore sway," to quote from his 
favorite Addison— to th« decline of other nations ami 
the extinction of races for similar causes — and to the 
divine dictum that the sins of the father shall he vis- 
ited upon hit children, even unto the fourth generation. 



ASftRKW JOHNSON, 



13 



With respect to the fate of the signers of the death- 
warrant of Charles 1. he had me prepare for him— or 
perhaps that I might also be convinced as firmly a> he 
—an elaborate tabulated statement of their respective 
horrible endings, the summing up of which, it must be 
confessed, looks as it" the finger of Itetrihpjion awarded 
them according to their just deserts. f^Vhen he was 
acquitted, it seemed to me that he was disappointed 
and chagrined al>out it, so Ion- had he pondered over 
the sequence of effects that would follow his conviction, 
and so convinced was he that his expulsion was the 
lo-ical conclusion from all the premises. 

Mr. Johnson lived in the White-house in a very 
? plain and homelike manner. His daughter, Mrs. Pat- 
tkrkos, the wife of Sknatoh Patterson, of Tennessee, 
superintended the household. She was a most estima- 
hie lady. 1 heard it said repeatedly when 1 was there 
that she personally made all the hutter that was used 
in the White-house during her father's term of office. 
And in the parlor she shorn- as favorably and conspicu- 
ously as in the kitchen, receiving and entertaining with 
an unaffected grace that was greatly relished by the 
many warm friends of the family who called on ac- 
count of worth and not position. Mrs, Stovkk. another 
daughter of Mr. Johnson (the mother of Miss Lily 
Stovkr, in whose presence the lamented statesman fell, 
stricken with paralysis, the words he Bpoke to her the 
last 1k> ever articulated with sufficient distinctness to he 
understood), was frequently at the White-house as>ist- 
ing Mrs. Patterson in its management and the enter- 
tainment of friends. In effect, the Executive Mansion, 
during the administration o\' Mr. Johnson, was an old- 
fashioned, hospitable, home-like farm-house, with a v 
shop attached, in which there was at least one hard 
worker, one severely earnest laborer, early and late, one 
conscientious devotee before the shrine of duty, and 
that one the president of the United States himself, 
Andrew Johnson. 



14 



ANDREW JolINsoN 



I am frequently asked what were Mi;. Johnson's r. - 
ligious heliefs, it' any.'CJIe n;h a man not of Indicts, 
bat of conviction*, th« result.- of hard thinking, from 
the data that came within his reach. He wag pious. 
perhaps, hut not religious — the proprieties, moralities. 
ami duties of life seemed to concern him a great deal 
more than creeds. 1 think this* i- why lit- admired 
Coxki eirs si. mueli — or [>ossihlv the result <»t* hi- stud- 
ying that grand old master. In tin- conversation re- 
ferred to altove. when the in* of winter melted nw;n 
and the Bowers of spring shone forth in the onh 
uia) smile on the presidential visage I heheld in two 
years and nMv. Mr. Johnson dwelt particularly on the 
Confucian form of the maxim, which is the heart <*i 
Christianity. "Do unto others as you would have tin m 
do unto you," and expressed a decided preference for 
the hoary Chine-, antecedent phrase. The hickerings 
ol sects, the hypocrisies of political psalm -si tigers, and 
the pious frauds in general which came under his nU 
servation. were on several occasions the suhject of d< 
nuneiation which halked not at the most emphati* 
not the most elegant, monosvllahic Saxon in the lan- 
guage. It he had a hi hie at all, as far as I could learn. 
it was the constitution ol the I n it* . 1 States. lie had a 
duty to perform in the flesh, u solemn oath to ma 
tain, ami whether or not he had a soul t<. lie sav< 
damned hereafter, was secondary, and in aeeordai • 
with his performance in the Hesh. 

In conclusion, I m;i\ -a\ that, during the last v< 
ol his presidential term of ..flic. Mi. Johnson, on . 
<*"nnt of his physical suH'cring, his domestic car. 
arixieties, and his hard. inHexihle, ami persistent man- 
ner of thinking, reasoning and talking ol work u ol % 
doing everything, was lonely in the cent* i of fort\ m 
hong ol people, and unhappy e\a n to miserahle. on tl 
pinnacle of |»ower, of oik* of the mightiest nations 
the glolte, to which tin eyes ol myriad- an tunn 
tothe greatest happiness on earllyrlh was 



\M>Ki:\V .lollSSON 



to U- companionable, and his own philosophy teaches 
that 1,, paid the penalty of hi* greatness in loneliness 
and misery. y_ 

fin Li \m it's Km row u .. 

Among tin iaw trait- of the late kx-Presidkm r Johs- 
so\ brought out in Mi< Cowans interesting letter ot 
reminiscences published in another column, is hie 
avowed preference for the Confucian form ol the Gold- 
en Kulc- ,»vcr the well-known form of it given in the 
s, ruiou on tin Mount. This statement may be a little 
mvsterious to the general reader, ami a word of expla- 
nation | MI( as to what the Confucian lorpi is and 
what may possibly have l>een the reason ol Mk. John- 
son's preference, liiav not he out of place. 

\. „,vrii hv .1 1-1 s, M \ ii. vii. 12, the precept in fu- 

n reads thus: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye 

would that men should do unto you, do ye even so 

unto them :" or as it is recorded by Li kk. (vi, 31 ): k As 

w would that men should do unto you, do y<? even so 

\ it t!,, in ** This is substantially the lorm, too, m which 

tin- Itablii IIillkl. who lived about fifty years before 

ri,,. M ^ave it see Talmud of Babylon Schabbath 31 

This is the form in which the heathen emperor Alkx- 

vnokk Skvkius had it inscribed on all Ins palaces 

S1|M | |>u hlir buildings in letters of gold, (hence Golden 

i ; , llr , in admiration, though not in worship, o1 the 

< hristian's < »«•<! 

\| my centuries before the Christian era, however, the 
Chinese philosopher and saint, Conkivius, by what dim 
inspiration cannot be known, enunciated this rule in 
words almost identical, but not ijuite. As translated bv 
j h . i., , CoNtTcirs. p. 147), his words are, "What ; 

i h'k,. not when dime to yourself, do not that to oth- 
• file onh difference between the Chinese form j 
and the Christian form, it will be observed, is that the 

mi. r puts it negatively and the latter positively. Hie 
, llM enjoins ii- in* to do that which we would imt have 
,!,„„. , (l U s, t)i< other commands us to.fi" all that we 
would that oth. r- should do to us, 

W'liv Phksidkm Johnson should have preferred the 
negative form of the I'a-an. in Mr. Cowan's silence, we 
,-an onh ecture. Most commentators decidedly 

prefer the Christian.- It is more comprehensive, they 



in 



AMUM'.W JOHNSON. 



say ; it is not a mere order to abstain from injuring your 
fellow-men, but a command to help them, it they need 
your help. A very selfish man, they argue, might obey 
the Confucian precept |>erfeetly by living aloof from his 
kind, and only being ea refill not to do what he would 
not have them to do to him. Hut only a man with the 
highest Christian lienevolence could fully live up to the 
Golden Rule of .lists, and do all tin things for liis fel- 
low-men which he could wish them to ^^ for him. 

We can easily sec, however, how Mit. Johnson could 
have taken a different view. The rule not t»> do a< you 
would not be done by, may l>e translated by the mon 
familiar phrase* "Mind your own business,' 1 and then 
are not a few philosophers ready to maintain that it 
this rule were faithfully followed among nun. the high- 
est condition of human happiness would be attained. 
A man long in publie life is peculiarly apt to take this 
view. He continually sees the evil effects of meddle- 
someness. The nfficiousness <»t" even the hrst <>! people 
when they leave off attending t»> their own affairs in 
order to make other men better, after tin /V p attern, is 
seen to be disastrous: and the thought 7ontinuail\ 
forces itself on him. that if each man would righth 
order his own affairs, and leave his neighbors entirely 
tree to do likewise, order, tranquillity, and happiness 
would reign everywhere, as far as it i> possible for them 
to do so in human affairs. 

We conjecture with considerable confidence that sonic 
such feeling as this must have been at the bottom <>t 
the preference for the Chinese rule over tie ( 'hristian as 
avowed by tough old Andy, who during the most se- 
vere trial of his life felt that he was being hounded to 
the death by many of the hot |>eople in the country. 
We nevertheless think that Johnson was mistaken 
The Jewish and (hristian form is by far the highest 
and best. To retrain from harming or interfering with 
pur -neighbors, is a noble thing, hut to i\^ them good is 
far nobler. In the application of this Litter rule men 
may sometimes make mistakes, may be officious and 
interfere with other people's freedom of action, hut that 
is not implied in the rule whit h authorizes nothing of 
the kind. The Golden Rule of the Talmud and the 
New Testament is still as it was eighteen centuries 
the most perfect moral preeept in human literature 



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